20 november: Waking up without science

Building on his philosophy of common sense Bransen will argue that every human being has the potential capacity to address the global problems of our times without the need to be silenced by scientific expert witnesses. The Age of Enlightenment has promised to free us from the arbitrariness of worldly powers and the superstition of religious powers by developing a new mode of trust in our own rationality. Science has recommended itself as the most promising representative of our capacity for critical thinking. Yet, the relationship between experts and laypeople seriously threatens this promise.

Overkoepeld idee: The Force of Common Sense

What is our common sense worth in times of fake-news, Brexit and viral going anti-vaccination? You can’t be an expert in everything, but can we rely then without worries on our common sense? How to stand firm against an army of experts and at the same time defend your own expertise? Can we defend both science and common sense? In these lectures Jan Bransen (Radboud University) will explore the importance of a range of questions that might not be best reformulated so as to make them appropriate for a scientific approach, but that nevertheless deserve each person’s serious, systematic and intellectual attention.